Restarting Your Story

That would be great, wouldn’t it? Just snap our fingers (or blink our eyes) and have the ability to restart time. Oh, just think of the things we could do with a superpower like that!

Choose different numbers on a lottery ticket.
Hug your grandmother a bit longer.
Turn left instead of right.
Go on one more date.
Say no to the donut.
Dump that guy.
Quit that job.

What probably would have been better is to make a different choice in the moment, but the real superpower is the power of hindsight. Choices we make feel right (or at least justified) when we are making them. It’s only due to the consequences that we come to feel regret. (Well, maybe dating that guy with a motorcycle in college was a bad decision but still so much fun…)

At the time of me writing this, we still cannot change the past. Doctor Who hasn’t shown up with a time machine to go back and tweak decisions, choices, or consequences for me or you or anyone else.

All we can do is learn from the past and make better choices going forward.

What it does NOT mean however is that life is meant to be lived one decision tumbling into the next from birth until death.

Life is not meant to be lived in a straight line.

You have my permission to restart your story any time you want and for as many times as you want.

Career changes. Relationship changes. Environment changes. We control it all, we just don’t realize it yet.

Unhappy with your partner / kids out of control / another holiday alone / missing your family?Make a plan to make it different.

Tired of the snow / exhausted from yet another leaky toilet / sad from not living near family or friends?Make a plan to make it different.

It doesn’t matter if you are a ‘corporate cube warrior’ looking to break out and launch your own business, a stay-at-home parent who craves something all to yourself, a business owner that has burned out, or even a big corporation that has lost its soul to stockholders and KPIs.

Your next decision does not have to be the obvious choice.

You have my permission to change the story to change your choices.

Looking back, I realize 2017 was a year of restarting my story. November 2016 was when I decided my story would be under my control and no one else’s.

2017 was chaotic and messy and stressful.

My story is different because of it. My choices are different because of it.